COP26

Staples can pinpoint the exact moment his fascination with the environment and the outdoors was sparked. He was in 5th grade, living in North Minneapolis, where Staples was born and raised, when he saw an edition of the Weekly Reader with polar explorer Will Steger on the cover. Inside was a story about the fellow Minnesotan’s hike across Antarctica. The next edition of the children’s magazine was about the ozone layer. Staples was hooked. He would go on to work in the recycling industry and learn how to install solar panels while completing his education in the Virgin Islands. He has since founded solar development company Renewable Energy Partners back in his hometown of North Minneapolis, where he works daily to develop the infrastructure needed to bring jobs and revenue from the emerging clean energy sector to the predominantly black and economically disadvantaged community. 

Part of that infrastructure includes a new clean-energy training center that will help local community members train for jobs in the clean-energy economy in their neighborhood. Currently, clean energy training centers are located in Greater Minnesota, requiring two-hour commutes each direction for North Minneapolis residents, Staples said. 

He wants to connect with other like minded leaders from Minnesota and elsewhere as part of MCEA’s delegation at COP26. 

“I want to discuss opportunities to help create and deliver the same types of programs and pathways to address climate change and poverty elsewhere and help bring in people who haven’t traditionally been engaged in the work at-large,” Staples said, adding:

“People who live in underserved communities everywhere should have the opportunity to participate in the development of this (clean energy) infrastructure and earn revenue.”

Their participation is critical to meet the challenge of the climate crisis, Staples says.  

“Just like they say you need every country on board, we need the poor people to subscribe to this too,” Staples said.

That can’t happen when people are struggling to put food on the table. Finding ways to connect them to jobs and other wealth opportunities rooted in the emerging clean energy economy can help reduce the long-standing inequities that exist across the globe, pull people out of poverty, and address climate change,” Staples said. 

“People do a lot of talking but we need doers, people who are going to step up to the plate with capital and the other resources necessary to assist in the process of making this happen.”

Digital Communications Manager Adam Reinhardt’s passion for environmentalism was solidified while the Illinois native was attending college at the University of Minnesota Duluth and got the chance to experience Lake Superior’s “magic.” 

“That’s the only word I can think of to describe that body of water and what it means to people and has meant to people for hundreds and thousands of years,” Reinhardt said. 

He pursued a degree in environmental studies while working to produce a show on local environmental issues for his college radio station, KUMD.

He recalls a professor who offered powerful classes on the anthropocene that left a lasting impression. 

“It’s fascinating to think about how human history is nestled into the bigger history of the planet and how there are all sorts of rippling impacts of the decisions that humans have made since the industrial revolution,” Reinhardt said.

To witness conversations among world leaders about how to address those impacts on a global stage as part of MCEA’s COP26 delegation is both a huge opportunity and a tremendous honor and responsibility, Reinhardt said.  

As a member of our communications team, he aims to help people at home feel connected to what’s happening on the ground in Glasgow both inside and outside the conference, and elevate the voices of Minnesotans sharing experiences about the impacts of the climate crisis within our state and the innovative ideas that have surfaced on how to address them. 

“Minnesota is one of the fastest warming states. We are the state where the Mississippi River is born. We are on the coast of Lake Superior where 10 percent of the world’s freshwater is. As a people in this state, we have a lot to lose,” Reinhardt said. “It’s really cool to be at this conference where I can help to connect the dots of what’s happening and what’s at stake here in Minnesota to global conversations.”

Much like MCEA’s other guest delegate, Tasha Van Zandt can trace her work as a documentary filmmaker back to polar explorer Will Steger, who she refers to as a “hometown hero.”

She can recall hearing tales of his “legendary conservation-focused expeditions” from a young age, and then came across a National Geographic magazine showcasing some of his expeditions. 

“I was immensely inspired by the otherworldly images and the way he used expeditions as a tool for international cooperation and … his platform as a means of effecting change,” Van Zandt said. 

His work served as catalyst for Van Zandt’s career as a filmmaker committed to documenting the natural world across all seven continents. 

Fast forward to years later when she finally got the chance to meet Steger after a talk he gave about his observations post his Trans-Antarctica expedition. That introduction was the impetus for After Antarctica, the documentary film Van Zandt directed about Steger’s “lifelong journey as an eyewitness to the greatest changes across both poles.” 

Van Zandt will present the film alongside her team and Steger at COP26.

“To be able to share Will’s story is such an incredible gift,” Van Zandt said. “I hope (it) can inspire others to take action and share their own eyewitness stories in the way it has for me.” 

“By making this film, I myself have come to understand that our own health as individuals and the health of our planet (are) all interconnected. We are nature,” Van Zandt continued. “After Antarctica is Will's own climate eyewitness story, but as the planet continues to change, we are all eyewitnesses now and the power of our stories can create incredible change.”